With respect to desktop applications, the lowest level of integration that is possible is the passing of resources via a well-known storage location such as the file system. In a file system, a user may simply enter a path and access the desired file. A clipboard is a special file or memory area where data is stored temporarily before being copied to another location. Clipboards streamline application integration. Many desktop applications, e.g. word processors, use a clipboard for cutting and pasting. When a block of pre-selected text is cut, the word processor copies the block to the clipboard. When the block of pre-selected text on the clipboard is pasted, the block is copied to its final destination, which is often another application program.
Clipboards may support varying levels of meta-data about copied resources, such as descriptive attributes and resource format descriptions. Also, clipboards may support the transfer of resource meta-data that can facilitate negotiation between source and destination services. For example, a text block cut to the clipboard from a word processor may be accompanied by a meta-data tag indicating that the text has been spell-checked. A destination application to which the text block is pasted may evaluate the “spell-checked” tag and determine that it may skip its usual routine step of spell-checking incoming data.
Much like the levels of integration that are possible between desktop applications, there are varying levels of integration that are possible between web services. However, present web services do not provide for a direct channel for the transfer of resources between source and destination services. Presently, a resource must be first transferred (downloaded) from the source web service to an end-user's client computer and then transferred (uploaded) from the end-user's client computer to the destination web service. In the present topology of the Internet and World Wide Web, the transmission bandwidth available to end-user client computers is often limited, particularly when compared to the transmission bandwidth available to web server computers on which web service applications execute. Web server computers are most often located on the premises of Internet Service Providers (ISP) or Application Service Providers (ASP) that have high-bandwidth connections to the Internet. Thus, presently the transfer of a resource from a source web service to a destination web service is often inefficient due to the required intermediate transfers of the resource to and from an end-user client system. A further present limitation to web resource transfers is that the Internet/World Wide Web connection to an end-user's client computer is often not very secure, i.e. it is subject to both physical and electronic intrusion, particularly when compared to the security of the connection between web services, which as previously mentioned are most often hosted on the protected physical premises of an ISP or ASP and are also connected much closer to high-bandwidth, restricted, main Internet transmission channels. Thus, the secure transfer of resources from a source web service to a destination service may be compromised due to the need for the intermediate transfers to and from an end-user's client computer.
Consequently there is a need for a method and system to facilitate the efficient and secure transfer of resource(s) from a source web service to a destination web service.